


Miasma

by YukiSkyes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A brief somewhat graphic depiction of death, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Azure Dragon Lance, Black Tortoise Hunk, Gen, Mentions of vomiting and nausea, Monster decapitation, Orochi/Hydra mix, Summoner Shiro, Vermilion Bird Keith, White Tiger Pidge, some Eastern-inspired elements in a Western high fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 15:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11603793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiSkyes/pseuds/YukiSkyes
Summary: Verterna is slowly dying and Pidge calls for Shiro’s help to investigate the source of the affliction ailing her forest. But the area they must navigate has become a dangerous, noxious swamp shrouded in a miasma of poison. The help of all the Guardian Spirits is going to be needed if they want to find out what’s happening. It’s just as well when it becomes apparent that there’s something malicious lurking in the mists beyond.





	Miasma

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to the wonderful [alishajonesart](https://alishajonesart.tumblr.com/) for working with me! All the art you see here is by her!
> 
> Additional thanks to [commodorecliche](https://commodorecliche.tumblr.com/) for the patience and wherewithal of beta-ing this monstrous thing. Without her, this story wouldn't be half as good as it is, so kudos to her!
> 
> I have never written something this long before and actually complete it. I'm weeping tears of joy. Now let me lie down and die for a few days @_@
> 
> Also, find me on [tumblr!](http://reminiscingdreamer.tumblr.com/)

The pull of a reverse summon wasn’t one Shiro experienced a lot, so he was caught slightly off guard when one tugged urgently at him now. It must be something important or, well, important in relative terms at least. He’d been summoned this way once before when Lance had lost his comb and wanted Shiro’s help finding it.

The presence settled in the recesses of his mind was bright, clear, and piercing; Shiro honed in on Pidge’s precise energy, pulling himself toward its guidance.

He arrived on the scene in a flash with the smell of burnt air and ozone lingering in his nose and the tingle of residual magic jittering through his body from the teleport. Shiro blinked away the whiteness edging his vision, but even with part of his vision obscured, he recognized the area he found himself in immediately. It was the Giants’ Woodland of Vertana, potent with woody musk under shadowy coolness and towering trees so immense that it would take several minutes just to walk the circumference of their trunks. Pacing in front of one such tree in the generous space between its roots was Pidge.

She was in her human form, which made it easier to see the way her face scrunched in frustration. She muttered to herself for a split second before she snapped her head up at Shiro’s arrival. An expression close to relief replaced her previously anxious demeanor, but her body remained tense with whatever troubled her.

“Shiro! I’m so glad you’re here! We need to head over to the north forests, pronto,” she rambled, the words tumbling out of her mouth as she powered across the short distance separating them.

Shiro held up his hands, confused and already a bit overwhelmed by the way Pidge was crowding up to him despite her stature.

“Whoa, slow down, Pidge. What’s going on?”

Pidge shifted from one foot to the other, clearly antsy to get moving as she replied, voice tight frustration, “Something’s killing everything in the forests, including the Olkari. If we don’t find out _what_ and stop it, there’ll be nothing left!”

“Pidge.” He set both hands onto her shoulders. The tension in them made them almost as stiff as wood. “From the sound of it,” Shiro continued, his voice calm but firm, “the situation is bad, but I need you to slow down and walk me through it or I can’t help you. So let’s take a deep breath and sit.”

Pidge looked like she wanted to do anything other than sit and breathe. She pressed her lips together and glared unblinking at his chest, almost like an irate owl, but after the initial flash of defiance, she dropped heavily onto the dirt and sparse grass.

Shiro lowered himself onto the ground beside her and he waited for her to finish as she took deep lungfuls of air. When she finally spoke again, her voice was noticeably less stressed. It didn’t alleviate all of her tension, but it was the best he’ll get.

“A week ago, out of nowhere, I felt the northern region of Verterna dying and I went to investigate. Then I heard the Olkari praying for health and I realized whatever was killing the forest and animals must’ve spread over everywhere else if it reached them. I think it might be both plague and poison.” Pidge drummed her fingers against one knee while she jiggled the other, jittery once again.

“Before I knew it, half the north forest was swallowed by this fog of poison. The Olkari are sick and dying. Matt’s doing his best to prevent it from spreading and dad’s trying to find a cure. But we haven’t made any progress finding the cause! If I don’t stop it soon, it’s going to destroy the whole forest!”

Pidge made an aborted movement to spring to her feet, biting the nail of her thumb instead, and Shiro didn’t blame her for being antsy. The situation sounded dire. If the forest was dying, Pidge couldn’t use the plant life to probe for the root of the problem and stop it. No wonder she was at the end of her rope.

“It’s okay, Pidge. I’ll help, and I’m sure everyone else will too if we need them,” Shiro assured, offering her a smile. Pidge returned it with a quick grin but it faded as she shifted uncomfortably.

“Actually,” she started slowly, moving her thumb away from her mouth and shifting her gaze away in what Shiro recognized as guilt. “there is one thing about the poison.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Pidge poked her fingers into the dirt, her eyes fixated on the ground as she spoke. 

“I… think it affects Guardian Spirits.”

“It affects Guardian Spirits? It affected _you?_ ” Shiro's mouth hung open briefly for words, baffled. “But poison and disease doesn’t affect Guardian Spirits.”

“Well, it did.” Pidge ducked her head under his piercing stare.

“How?”

Shiro frowned. If this poison was there from the start and it really could affect Guardian Spirits, then Pidge had spent a whole week subjecting herself to it. That was long enough to feel the effects, yet even then, she didn’t contact him for help.

“I dunno, but it makes me dizzy mostly.” She shrugged, as if that could somehow mitigate how alarming this was. “If I’m exposed too long, my stomach starts feeling really bad, like… I want to hurl.” She grimaced, clutching her abdomen.

Shiro’s own stomach sank.

“Pidge…”

“I know! I should’ve called for you sooner!” Pidge burst out, throwing up her arms. “But it got so bad so fast, I couldn’t wrap my head around it!”

There was more than a little regret in her tone and Shiro knew that her snappish attitude was born from frustration with herself. He didn’t need to exacerbate it by what she perceived were criticisms.

“It’s okay, Pidge, I’m not judging you,” he said, making sure to keep his voice level. “I’m just worried because you risked your _own safety._ ”

Pidge deflated and slumped onto the ground next to him.

“I guess… Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight," she apologized, rubbing the back of her neck.

Shiro smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

“No hard feelings. So, did  you find anything out while you were investigating?”

Pidge shot him a brief smile at the change of subject before forming a serious line.

“Yeah. The forest is covered in a poisonous fog and it gets thicker the deeper you go… more swamp-like too. Some areas are swimming in some kind of acid. It pretty much uh…” her face scrunched in a wince, “liquefied everything together.”

Shiro’s brows rose.

“Liquefied?”

Pidge nodded.

“Everything? Together? As in, rocks, plants… _animals?_ ”

Pidge nodded again.

He gaped, feeling his stomach recoil at the prospect of having to experience that first hand in the near future.

“Great…” he said weakly. He should stop thinking about that and focus on what’s important, though. “Do you have any idea what’s causing it?”

Pidge looked down, an inscrutable expression on her face.

“Not really… I was hoping maybe Hunk could help. He’d at least give us a better idea about the terrain and any anomalies.”

“Alright, let’s do that then. I’ll summon him when we get there.”

Shiro stood up and helped Pidge up as well before dusting off his black and white robes. “So, shall we get going?”

“Wait, you should summon Keith first,” Pidge said, grabbing tightly onto his arm. "He could protect us from the poison."

Oh, right. Of course. Shiro knew he was forgetting something.

“Good idea. I’ll get him now.”

Keith was a fiery yet steely burn of willpower as he dug up his presence and tugged at him.

Liquid heat rushed through him almost like a physical scald right beneath his skin. Fire erupted in a circle around him, twisting upward into the form of an enormous bird with a long, trailing tail. The flames flickered into feathers of metallic lava as he swooped around to land in front of them in one graceful motion.

“Shiro, Pidge; what do you need?” Keith asked, ever to the point as he nodded his plumaged head in greeting.

“Hey, Keith. We need your help,” Shiro began with a smile and nod of his own greeting. “Some kind of poison or plague’s taken over northern Verterna. It’s spreading fast and it’s killing everything in its way. We need to figure out what it is, why it’s happening, and fix it, if possible.”

Keith cocked his head.

“Okay, so why do you need me?” 

“This poison could affect even the Guardian Spirits if they’re exposed to it for too long. We thought a fire barrier would be perfect if we needed to explore for long periods of time.”

Keith’s sharp, jewel-like eyes narrowed, a glint of purpose entering them as he said, “I can do that.”

“Great, then let’s get going.”

“I’ll ride with you. Hope you don’t mind,” Pidge said, walking up to Keith to climb onto his back.

Keith would’ve shrugged if he weren’t still in his avian form but as it was, he simply lowered himself to allow her to clamber on.

“Which way are we going?” Keith asked as Shiro climbed up after Pidge.

“Head north," Pidge replied swinging a leg over Keith's back.

"That's vague."

"Don't worry, you won’t miss it."

Once they were settled with a firm grip on his sleek, stiff feathers, Keith took off with a few powerful beats of his wings.

They lifted off from the forest floor and up through the thick canopy, the branches retracting and bending out of their way thanks to Pidge.

On the way up, Shiro linked Pidge and Keith’s mental connections together so they could communicate with one another without fighting with the wind to be heard.

When they’d breached the treetops and headed north, Keith said wryly through their link, “I won’t miss it, huh? More like I’d be blind if I did.”

Shiro knew what he meant. They would really have to be blind if they missed the strange blur right in front of them in the far horizon, as if someone had smudged part of the scenery with their thumb over a canvas of grayish background reaching up into the sky. If Shiro squinted, he thought he could just barely see a bit of color tinting the fog.

“Wait ‘til you actually land. The fog gets so thick, you might as well _be_ blind,” Pidge informed through the link.

A sudden thought occurred to Shiro.

“Pidge, did you sense any foreign magic while you were investigating?”

“Traces, but it’s pretty diluted. The air’s more saturated with poison than magic,” Pidge replied.

“You think there might be someone causing this?” Keith asked, quick to hone in on the implication of Shiro’s question.

“I don’t know,” Shiro answered, reaching for one of the pouches tied to his side. “It could be a natural cause, but I can’t ignore the possibility that someone cursed the forest.”

He pulled open the pouch and rifled through the tangle of charms for the one he was searching for.

“If anyone’s dumb enough to curse my forest, I’ll string them up by their toes over a carnivorous trapmouth,” Pidge said flatly, but Shiro didn’t miss the dark ring in her tone. It was enough to tell Shiro she was worryingly half-serious.

“Don’t,” he muttered distractedly, still sifting for the intricately woven charm of dried white curilean grass for curse-warding.

“Why not?” Pidge demanded with a huff and he could imagine the sullen look on her face. “I think it’d be a good way to teach the value of life and, more importantly, teach them not to curse my forest." 

“Because it’ll give the plant indigestion,” Keith quipped, a smirk in his tone.

“We’re not stringing anyone up over a trapmouth even _if_ they existed,” Shiro corrected as he removed his spell-warder from the purple cord around his gray sash that held his other active charms. He slipped the charm back into his pouch and tied the curse-warder on in its place.

“So if the person turns out not to be hypothetical, I could do it?” Pidge shot back.

“… If it turns out someone’s involved, we’ll think of a fitting punishment,” Shiro said diplomatically.

if it came down to that, Pidge had the right to deal with the wrongdoer however she saw fit. It was her territory, after all. At most, Shiro could ensure the punishments weren’t too extreme. Hanging someone over a plant that could swallow them whole was a bit… hmm… much, and it wouldn't solve any problems besides.

“We’re here. Hang on tight, I’m landing,” Keith announced, already gliding down into the wispy edges of the fog. Now that they were closer, Shiro could see that it was faintly lilac in color.

A thin barrier of Keith’s translucent flames sprang to life around them, encasing Shiro and Pidge in its protection. Shiro could feel the warmth of the fire, weak enough not to burn but strong enough to keep the mist at bay.

Keith touched down into a haze of desolation and silence. It was like they’d entered another world. Shiro could hardly believe they were in the same forest. Verterna, while varied in its regional environment, was eternally lush and vibrant; this was a veritable forest graveyard. The trees were the ashen shade of tombstones; their spindly branches curled like skeletal fingers, mostly bare save for patches of sickly leaves still clinging onto them. No echo of sound or rustle of movement disturbed its deathly stillness. It was devoid of life and color. The only trace of green was the tunic Pidge wore.

All around them, the stench of decaying nature pervaded the air alongside the miasma with a putrid undertone that had Shiro curling his tongue to the back of his throat.

Fallen, brown leaves rustled beneath their feet as they dismounted, the forest floor a carpet of malady.

A burst of flame enveloped Keith, dispersing to reveal a young man in light, red leather armor. He pursed lips as he stared ahead into the blankness.

“This is looking good already,” Shiro couldn’t help but comment, unsettled by the resounding silence more than anything. The drabness he could deal with, but silence was the sound of void and he hated it.

“Really? Glad you think so, ’cause it’s going to get worse further in,” Pidge told him, a hand on her hip as she surveyed the environment. Thanks to her eyesight, she could actually see what she surveyed too, including details that made her stomach clench: The cysts bulging from the trunks, the stripped bark, and the lumps on the ground beneath the leaves.

“Let’s get Hunk,” Keith reminded and Shiro nodded.

He reached for the warm, solid mass in the back of his mind that was Hunk, directing the conversation inwardly towards him.

“Hey, Hunk.”

“Hey, Shiro, what’s up?” Hunk sounded jovial. It was good to hear he was doing well. Shiro wasn’t excited about being the bearer of bad news.

“Verterna’s been hit with some kind of poison,” Shiro informed him grimly. “We need to find the cause, but the area’s dead and the poison will kill any plants Pidge will summon to probe. We need your help. Maybe we could at least map the affected area and see if you could spot anything off.”

“Oh, that sounds bad. Summon me up.”

“Just make sure you come in human form,” Shiro advised before drawing him in.

The magic that coursed through him felt heavy as he summoned Hunk, like a weight that pressed him firmly into the ground. The soft earth in front of them piled itself into a mound, much smaller than it would’ve been had Hunk come in his Guardian form.

Once fully erected, the loose dirt and bits of rock crumbled off until only Hunk’s figure remained. A fire barrier encased him the moment he emerged, black carapace-like armor highlighted with yellow, shone dully against the light.

“Hey, guys—whoa this really does look bad.” Hunk winced and clapped a hand over his nose. “Ugh, and it smells. Really bad.”

“Great to have you, Hunk,” Pidge said, bustling up to him, “Think you could help us out?”

“Sure, give me a minute.”

He braced both his feet and closed his eyes, reading the spread of land and the layers of the earth even from miles away.

The moments stretched on and his brow furrowed more and more until finally, he opened his eyes again. He tilted his head towards the ground, eyes wide and clearly distressed.

“The earth, it’s… really messed up, especially a few miles in. Some parts are rotted down to the bedrock. Everything’s mush. I can barely pick it apart.” He raised his head to look at them. “But there’s this one thing that’s way, way, waaay deeper than the rest. It looks like a tunnel—a big one—and I don’t think it was there before.”

“Did you sense anything in it?” Shiro asked, glad for the lead. He really didn’t fancy the idea of trudging through acres of poisoned forest for scraps of clues.

“Ah, no, nothing.” Hunk scratched at his head. “We’re… not going down there, are we?”

“We’re going to have to if we want to find out what’s going on. We don’t have much else to go on.”

Hunk heaved a defeated sigh.

“You know, I probably shouldn’t be saying this as a Guardian Spirit, but I’m kind of sick of pursuing mysterious things and events,” his hands moved apart in an arc, fingers wiggling, “into deep dark places. It never ends well for us.”

“Sorry, Hunk. It’s just part of the job,” Shiro chuckled. “We get out of trouble well enough.”

“If you call all those close calls ‘well enough’,” Pidge quipped. Shiro didn’t argue: she had a point.

“Come on. We should get going while it’s still light,” Keith cut in.

“Trust me, light’s not going to matter the deeper we go.” Pidge turned her attention to Hunk. “Which way? I’ll help lead us through.”

Pidge moved into the lead and gestured for Hunk to point them the right way.

Hunk directed them ahead and to the left and they set off, walking close together to prevent losing sight of each other. Finding each other would be a nightmare if they got separated.

Shiro could see the stiffness lacing Keith’s movements and he probably wasn't faring much better either. He could feel the back of his own neck prickle as they walked through a seemingly endless dreariness.

“This place is really creepy. I keep feeling like something’s going to jump out at me,” Hunk voiced. Shiro agreed; he was sure the others did too judging from their shared glances. “Um… What’s that?”

There was a large shape on the ground ahead, indistinct from the fog.

“You really don’t want to know,” Pidge replied tightly, not even slowing her pace or turning towards it. “Don’t look at it. Trust me.”

As they drew closer, it became clear that it was the carcass of a large animal. It was almost unidentifiable, riddled with signs of violent disease in the form of ugly, festering lacerations and burst growths that bled black ooze.

Even without seeing his face, Shiro knew that Hunk had turned green as he jerked away with a cry that melted into an alarming, "Urp," as he hugged his stomach. With a sinking feeling in his gut, Shiro realized that they were probably going to be seeing a lot more of this going forward.

“Watch your step in case there are small animals on the ground,” Pidge muttered, gaze fixed forward and chin set, doing her best to remain unaffected, though her fists clenched as Shiro gently rubbed Hunk’s back.

Shiro was a bit worried for Pidge’s state of mind. She’d probably already seen the extent of the damage, but he doubted it was any easier to accept that the forest she loved and protected had turned to this under her watch.

“We’ll be careful,” Keith assured her with a small nod.

“Don’t worry, Pidge. We’ll get to the root of this,” Shiro added quietly.

After Hunk regained his bearings, they continued onward, albeit with a heightened sense of caution. Just as Pidge had warned, their surroundings had darkened more and more around them until they were trooping through a hazy, dusky purple despite how it couldn’t have been later than afternoon.

The shapes of deadened trees were little more than faint suggestions in the darkened fog. Keith wordlessly lit several orbs of dim fire to light the way.

Their feet began to sink further into the squishy ground, squelching with every step they took. They skirted their way around several bodies of questionable sludge that bubbled in front of them. It was only when a fallen branch _sizzled_ in one of the ponds that they realized it was acid.

They did their best to maneuver carefully—some spots of acid were nearly indistinguishable from the soggy earth. They worried they wouldn’t recognize the corrosive sludge until they were missing their foot. It was apparent now that the forest was rapidly deteriorating into little more than a deformed swamp the deeper they went.

“Ugh, it’s so rank here,” Hunk said past his pinched nose.

“Yeah, nothing to be done there,” Pidge concurred. It was clear by her tone that she was also doing her best not to breathe in the stench.

Shiro didn’t even want to think about why it smelled so bad. He also opted to try to breathe through his mouth while Keith had long since pulled his scarf over his face. Shiro didn’t know if that really helped, but he yearned for even the small mercy of a thin cloth.

Keith noticed him staring and shrugged. He could see Keith’s smirk barely outlined underneath the cloth and Shiro rolled his eyes good-naturedly at him.

“How much further, Hunk?” Shiro asked, desperate to know when they would reach their destination.

“Umm… should be about ten more minutes?”

Shiro bit back his sigh and soldiered on.

True to Hunk’s estimations, it took only a few minutes before Pidge grabbed him to indicate a halt, stopping Shiro and Keith behind them. Even in such dark and cloudy conditions, it was easy to see why.

There was a drop in front of them, blacker than even their surroundings. No, not a drop: it was more like a hole, Shiro amended, noticing the curvature of the edge.

Shiro and Keith walked with slow, careful movements over to it. A slight, hollow updraft blew through their hair and played with the fire of the barrier, causing it to flicker.

Pidge muttered obscenities as she peered down the hole while Keith turned to Hunk.

“How far does this go?” he asked, directing one of his flames to dip a little deeper into the hole. It illuminated a steep incline, nearly vertical, but it didn’t appear to be a straight drop down. Definitely not a good idea to try to climb it anyway.

“Two thousand five hundred and fifty-three feet,” Hunk replied, peering into the vacant depths. “Well, the good news is that I don’t feel anything alive down there or well, moving at least. The bad news is that that… doesn’t always mean something.”

He winced, no doubt remembering the same incident Shiro and Keith did, judging by the way Keith's lips pursed. They’d been attacked by a weblum once when they unintentionally wandered right in front of it from where it was settled in a sand dune in the Empty Sea of the Krimaera Desert even with Hunk on high alert for some fleeing thieves.

Hunk turned to Keith with a somewhat nervous but resigned look.

“So, I’m guessing we’re flying down there?”

“It’ll be faster,” Keith said with a glance towards Shiro, who nodded.

“Sorry, Hunk,” he apologized. Hunk never fared well in the air.

Hunk sucked in a breath through his nose and let it all out again, deflating slightly with it.

“Yeah, okay. Just… don’t go too fast. You know.” He gestured vaguely to himself, particularly his stomach while casting a significant look over at Keith.

Keith grimaced to both Pidge and Shiro’s own stifled laughter. “I’ve learned my lesson centuries ago.”

In a short blaze that temporarily lit the murky swamp in blinding yellow and orange, he returned to his spirit form once more and they all climbed onto his back.

Once they were all safely holding on, Keith unfurled his wings and pushed off. He hovered over the hole for a brief moment. It was a few feet wider than his entire wingspan; he'd fit and they descended, the orbs of fire wafting in after them.

“This thing definitely wasn’t here before. I know every inch of Verterna, even with it like this. So then how did something so huge just… appear?” Pidge mumbled half to herself as she eyed the bumpy, packed dirt walls just barely visible in the light cast by the fire.

“Maybe the ground weakened from all the acid up there and collapsed?” Keith suggested.

“No, it wouldn’t have collapsed into a _tunnel,_ ” Hunk immediately countered. “Besides, this hole?" He gestured around them. "It’s not natural. There’s no sign that it could be. It’s more like someone… or something,” he made a scooping motion with a hand, “dug it out.”

“Dug it out?” Pidge echoed disbelievingly and maybe a little anxiously. She straightened up and twisted around to look at Hunk. “Without me noticing? How? I think I’d notice if something was digging a huge-ass tunnel out here!”

“Well, not if something was born down there in the first place,” Hunk said slowly.

“Wait, you mean kind of like… like a smaller Balmera?” Keith ventured.

“Please no,” Pidge groaned, untwisting herself and pressing fingers against her forehead. “One Earth-Eater’s enough, thanks.”

“No, the Balmera’s one-of-a-kind, I mean, unless another Zarkon comes along and leaves another, like, thousands of lost souls, a second Balmera isn’t happening,” Hunk dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Besides, most souls are funneled through the Balmera now. It’s no longer possible to get the buildup of souls necessary to create another one,” Shiro said thoughtfully.

But if something else was born out of the earth then...

“Well, _something’s_ had to have dug this tunnel and Balmera or not, it’s still big,” Keith argued.

“Argh. I can't believe something like that is somewhere in my forest!” The strain in her voice suggested Pidge was about ready to tear her hair out.

“We don’t know anything yet. Let’s investigate this tunnel first before we draw conclusions,” Shiro attempted to soothe.

But if it was true that something dug _out_ of the tunnel rather than in, it was more likely to be something born of the earth. Shiro hoped so, almost prayed for it, because that'd mean a simple creature acting out of instinct rather than deliberate malicious intent. It’d mean there was no one intentionally trying to hurt the land and its inhabitants.

They eventually touched down onto rocky ground and they slid off to allow Keith to change back.

Here, the miasma lingered but in thin wisps easily pierced by firelight and Shiro could see clearly for the first time in about an hour.

The tunnel yawned wide and high around them, a stale yet moist, acrid breeze blowing over their faces almost like they were in the throat of a living creature. It was… disconcerting to say the least.

“Somehow, this feels worse than chasing the Balmera through its tunnels,” Pidge said with a small shiver, agreeing with his sentiments.

“Maybe we’ve been eaten already,” Keith proposed, carefully scanning the new environment.

“Don’t say that!” Hunk yelped but immediately hushed when his voice bounced faintly.

“Alright, enough.” Shiro walked forward, intending to take the lead. “Let’s go, but keep your eyes peeled.”

The tunnel proved to be an easier terrain to navigate than the surface if only for the sheer reason that nothing in the ground could potentially melt their feet or threaten to suck them under, but it was vast and empty and for a long, tense while, it looked like it’d stay that way.

Several minutes in, Pidge stilled and if she were in her Guardian form, no doubt her fur would’ve been standing on end.

“Wait, wait, wait, stop.” She reached out to grab Shiro’s black and white robe even though they were already freezing the moment she called for them to wait.

“What is it?” Keith whispered, his hand hovering over his sheathed obsidian blade in its knife form as the fireballs dimmed to something barely bigger than a candle flicker. He was so tense, Shiro could feel it radiating off of him. In comparison, Hunk's fists held in front of him almost jittered with nerves, ready to react at a moment’s notice.

Shiro’s own hand drifted to grasp the hilt of his own short sword, preparing for what might lay ahead.

“It… It looks like a giant snake,” Pidge replied in a murmur.

Shiro squinted, but his eyesight wasn’t nearly as adapted to darkness as Pidge’s was or even as sharp as Keith’s and he couldn’t make much of anything up ahead beyond the faint haze of orange tinting his vision.

“It’s not moving,” she added a brief pause later.

“I don’t feel anything moving either,” Hunk supplied as well, although by the waver in his voice, it didn’t seem as though that bit of information was reassuring anyway.

Shiro palmed his metal detection charm and glanced down at it to confirm it wasn’t indeed corroding from dark magic, cracking with ill will, or both. He would’ve felt any changes to it through a sharp disruption in his magic, but it never hurt to check. 

“The detection charm isn’t reacting, so at the very least, it doesn’t have dark magic or hostile intent. It could be that it didn't see us, but I doubt it,” he said, nodding towards the hovering flames.

They were smaller now, but the light would’ve been visible from a distance especially with no cover. Anything in there would’ve spotted them before they spotted it.

“Sooo…” Hunk glanced between them. “What, we just…” he waved vaguely over at the paleness in the distance, “walk up to it and hope it’s friendly?”

“I could go ahead first,” Keith volunteered, taking two steps forward and unsheathing his blade. As soon as it was free of its scabbard, it lengthened into its full form like an extending fang. “I’m the fastest and I can fly. If it’s a threat, I can distract it while you guys run.”

“No, if it’s a threat, we’ll have to eliminate it anyway. It’s probably not a good idea to lure it to the surface by running—the terrain won’t work in our favor. Let’s approach, but cautiously,” Shiro suggested.

Pidge shrugged, jerky and a bit impatient.

“Yeah, fine; it’s not moving and it’s not evil. Good enough for me.”

Keith nodded as Hunk peered into the darkness.

“Yeah, sure, right, okay. Sounds legit.”

They proceeded onward, alert for any signs of movement: anything  that might suggest the thing ahead was reacting to their presence. Keith moved to the front of the group this time followed by Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro bringing up the rear.

Eventually, they could make out the silhouette of a huge form curled to nearly fill the whole space of the narrowed tunnel. Its pallid color like a wan moon made it easier to pick out in the darkness the closer they drew.

Just as Pidge had said, it appeared to be an enormous snake, unmoving from its spot in the tunnel. In fact, it was so still, Shiro wasn’t sure it was even alive. It didn’t even react to their presence, despite being close enough that they could make out the details of its form in the gloom.

The snake was like a ghost, its scales a cloudy pellucidity. The reason why became apparent as soon as they had walked up to it: it _wasn’t_ a snake; it was the skin of one.

Upon recognizing that, they each collectively relaxed their guards with sighs of relief. The fireballs brightened again, allowing them to see more of it. The scales reflected their light, gleaming, frosted, and thick. It was beautiful.

“The snake could be deeper in the tunnel,” Keith pointed out, returning his blade back to its knife form and sheathing it as Pidge ran up to the abandoned skin to examine it more closely.

“Maybe, but for now, there’s no danger. We’ll know if something decides to come up to us.” Shiro looked towards Hunk, who nodded.

“This is so cool. The scales feel like glass,” Pidge marveled. She beckoned the others over, “Come feel it.”

Curious, they joined her and ran their hands over the skin.

“Wow, you’re right. It feels kind of nice; smooth,” Hunk said, delighted. He pressed his palm more firmly against the sleek surface, focusing. “It’s… not glass, though. Something similar? I’ve never come across material like this before. Strange... One thing’s for sure though, it’s not a crystal or a mineral.”

“Doesn’t feel like it has any magic either,” Pidge turned to them, her palm still flat against the cool surface, “But that’s not really saying much since magic tends to disperse over time and this is only a discarded remnant of the actual creature.”

“So we don’t know if this thing has magic,” Shiro concluded. That could be troublesome.

Hunk rapped his knuckles against it and a clear, sharp ring echoed through the cavern, the sound reminiscent of knocking on thick glass.

“How much like glass do you think it is?”

“Let’s find out.”

Keith stepped back a few feet and held up his hand.

The rest of them, sensing what he was about to do, scurried away as Keith hurled a tongue of concentrated flames at the skin.

The skin lit up in angry red but as Keith increased the intensity of the flames, it morphed into molten gold. The fireballs diminished into sparks as his flames shifted from orange to yellow to blue.

He kept it up for several more minutes, the fire reflected the perspiration on his face as his arms started to tremble under the strain of the effort. 

Just as Shiro opened his mouth to call it quits, a spot of black appeared on the surface of the skin, eating away at it with verve. The edges curled away as it burned before Keith stopped with a sharp gasp, bracing his hands against his knees and panting for breath.

The others rushed to his side. Shiro pushed down on his shoulders, murmuring encouragements for him to sit.

Keith resisted at first, but it wasn’t long before he caved and sat down, trying to breathe the fatigue out of his system. Shiro followed him to the ground, kneeling beside him with a hand still on his shoulder.

“You okay?” Shiro asked. He should be, but it never hurt to ask.

“Yeah, just… give me a sec,” Keith panted, his breaths calming.

“That... was so cool,” Hunk praised from Keith’s other side.

“That skin’s some piece of work, that’s for sure,” Pidge said, equally appreciative as she looked behind herself at the now burned skin.

In the near-pitch darkness, illuminated only by the glow of their fire barriers, Shiro could see dots of glowing cinders littering the surface of the skin. It hadn’t melted, but it now sported a sizeable hole ringed in black like burnt parchment.

That _was_ pretty cool.

“That took a while to burn. I thought it’d melt, but it’s pretty heat-resistant, huh?” Hunk observed with a thoughtful hum, then in glee, “Hey, imagine what we could do with that!"

“At least now we know it’s not glass,” Shiro said.

“It’s heat-resistant _like_ glass, though. Maybe it has other properties like glass?” Pidge wondered. The faint light of her barrier moved as she wandered towards the hole. “Do you think it’d shatter if it’s hit with a hard enough force?”

“Ooh, we could try that too,” Hunk replied with a grin matched by Pidge's. “I could try ramming it with rock and see what happens.”

“You’re not doing this just to destroy stuff, are you?” Keith huffed. He was still a bit winded but his breathing was back to normal at least.

“A little bit,” Pidge admitted with an unrepentant shrug, “But we do need to know if we meet this thing.”

Hunk nodded along with her and Keith sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever. Hurry up and get your destructive impulses out of the way so we can move on already.”

“Alright, let’s get it over with," Shiro said with a short laugh as he stood up. He held out his hand to help Keith up as well. “You good to stand?”

“Yeah,” Keith took his hand and Shiro pulled him to his feet.

Once he was standing, the orbs of fire reignited around them, albeit dimmer than before. They would get stronger as Keith recovered, but Shiro could sense he was still feeling the effects of his exertion from flagging edges of Keith's presence like a torch in the wind in the back of his mind.

“You can rest a little longer if you want.”

It didn’t surprise him when Keith shook his head.

“No, I’m good.”

Keith hated sitting around when there were things to do. While his resilience was admirable, sometimes, he pushed himself too hard even when he didn’t have to. It made Shiro feel better to let Keith know the offer was there even if he didn’t take it.

“Okay, so, we’ll move back, I’ll make a wall, we’ll hide behind it, and then just…” Hunk mimed a motion with his arm like a ram, “Sound good?”

“Yeah, that works. Let’s do it,” Pidge agreed eagerly with an enthusiastic nod.

They moved away from the skin as Hunk drew up a thick, rocky wall high enough for them to crouch behind.

Keith lit a couple more fireballs near a section of skin while Hunk gathered stone from the floor and shaped it into a long rectangular ram.

“We ready?” Hunk asked, turning to the others.

“Been ready,” Pidge said with a crooked smirk.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go.”

“Alright-y, in three, two, one…”

The ram sped forward at the speed of a diving hawk, covering the distance in the blink of an eye. It crashed into the skin with a loud, piercing crack that had them ducking their heads with a wince.

They peeked over the wall only to find that the skin was perfectly intact. It was more than they could say for the stone ram: it was demolished at its front and large cracks ran down its length.

“… Wow,” Keith uttered, voicing what they were all feeling in one succinct word.

As if the word was the trigger, they were up in a flurry of motion as they ran up to the wreckage.

Hunk moved the rock away and inspected the point of impact on the skin.

“That didn’t even _scratch_ it, much less dent it," he said incredulously.

Shiro frowned. That didn’t bode well for whatever awaited them. It was resilient against fire and impervious to blunt trauma.

“Let’s try again, except with a pointed tip this time,” he suggested.

The others nodded and they repeated the trial with another ear-deafening crack.

This time when they examined it, the tip of the ram had broken off, but there was a small hole in the skin surrounded by a web of cracks. It still didn’t come close to piercing through to the other side.

“This wouldn’t be enough to even tickle it,” Keith declared, running careful fingers around the hole while Hunk let out an impressed noise.

“So is it glass or not? It acts like it isn’t and then it cracks.” There was a bit of irritation in Pidge’s tone, but some intrigue as well.

“I think it’s safe to say that it shares characteristics with glass,” Shiro said, hand over the lower half of his face as he stared at his faint reflection on a smooth surface, “The possibility it could withstand acid as well is high.”

“Wait…” Pidge swiveled to peer up at him. Her frown lingered on her face like a cloud. “Are you saying this thing could be adapted to the forest as it is now?”

Shiro sighed and pulled his hand from his face, ruffling through his white tuft of hair instead.

“It’s likely.”

“But…” Pidge’s brow creased into something troubled, “That kind of environment didn’t exist until recently. If it’s adapted to it then… how?” Her eyes widened, “You don’t think someone destroyed my forest just to _breed_ it do you?”

“No, it would’ve taken a lot longer than a week to make something like this,” Shiro reasoned, “and a lot of magic would’ve been used. You would’ve found out long before things got to this point.”

“Then it could’ve been born naturally,” Keith offered.

“Maybe, maybe not, but we have a way to find out for sure,” Hunk glanced at Shiro, “Right?”

Keith and Pidge both turned to stare at Shiro, expectation clear in the lift of their brows. He couldn’t help but be a little amused; they always looked at him like that whenever they hit a wall and needed more information.

“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises. You know the drill,” he warned, tone giving away his amusement.

“I think we’ll live even if you failed,” Keith snarked as Shiro went up to the nearest segment of skin.

“Speak for yourself. I want answers that I’m dying for,” Pidge grumbled, folding her arms.

Shiro pressed his palm against the skin and sent a small force of magic from the core of his body into the surface.

As expected, without magic of its own to protect the skin, Shiro’s magic easily ripped through it. With a shattering crash, he blew a jagged hole into it.

Pidge stared at the hole Shiro had punched into it and tipped her head to the ceiling, asking in annoyed exasperation, “ _So is it glass or not?_ ”

“It’s not, but I guess we could call it something else if you want?” Hunk asked with a scratch of his head, “I mean, if it annoys you so much.”

“Just name it glasycus and call it a day,” Keith groaned.

“Glasycus sounds like the name of a mountain,” Pidge objected.

“Guys, you remember I actually have to concentrate hard for this to work, right?” Shiro questioned with a lift of a brow.

There was a chorus of general affirmations as Shiro folded his legs beneath himself to sit.

He breathed in until his lungs filled with air before letting it out again, slow and steady. He repeated the process as he closed his eyes, turning all his focus and his magic to the shard cupped in his hands. He blanked out everything around him into silence and black.

The shard’s weight in his palms grew until it was as heavy as a king’s burden in his mind. Its sharp edges were like pinpoints of light that imprinted itself by the spine-prickling scrape across his consciousness. It curved and writhed sinuously with a low hiss, dragging its massive heft in a smooth slide across the inky decay, stagnant in rot, standing in stark contrast with the pure snow of its length.

It trailed up in branches of eight, each flicking their tongues in quick darts, tasting the heavy saccharine air like thick syrup turned curdling ashes in Shiro’s own mouth. Slit eyes stared through the miasma it breathed, through the fog, through the swamp, down its den, and Shiro opened his eyes, grabbing the connection and anchoring it tight.

The shard in his hands lifted and hovered inches above them, pointing unfalteringly up and to his left in the direction they had come.

“You did it!” Pidge cried, “What’d you find out?”

Shiro pursed his lips.

“It’s a white eight-headed snake with red markings.”

The markings reminded him an awful lot of the mystic symbols of a certain faraway, ruined land. But that couldn’t be possible because that land was no longer...

“Shiro?” Keith prodded tentatively, interrupting his thoughts. Shiro shook himself out of it. It didn’t matter, not when they had more important things to worry about.

“Sorry. It has a barbed scorpion tail, breathes poison and disease, and it has acid instead of venom.”

Pidge looked like she was struggling not to punch something, mainly the skin. Her curiosity evaporated for the moment in favor of anger. She only refrained for the sole reason that she’d only end up shattering bones.

“Seqeela,” she hissed instead. Shiro didn’t need to know Olkarian to recognize it as a curse.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t expect this reaction. After all, he’d just confirmed that this snake was likely what killed part of Verterna in the first place, but her vehemence was a bit startling.

“But we know what to go after now, right?” Hunk said with some doubt. “After that,we could find a way to fix up the forest, good as new.”

“No.” Pidge’s hands curled into tight fists, arms shaking. “You don’t understand. It’s not going to be that easy.” She looked away, a mixture of emotions crossing her face, but Shiro didn’t need to decipher all of it to recognize her distress. “All this poison and acid… is so seeped in that nothing’s going to grow here again for _decades_ , if ever.”

The slight waver in her voice squeezed hard at something in Shiro’s chest.

Hunk moved forward and encircled Pidge in a gentle hug.

“No, Pidge. Your forest is tough. I’m sure someday new stuff will grow that could eat this acid for breakfast.”

“But how could I not _know_ about the hole and the snake?” Pidge questioned, making no move to return the hug, but not breaking  away either, “They’re not exactly small! I know everything going on in the forest. What made this time different? Why didn’t I notice? Because of that, Verterna is suffering!”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Keith consoled, tone soft. He folded his arms tightly across his chest, “You can’t _always_ notice everything that goes on in your lands and even then, you can’t always make the right calls.”

His hand gripped his sleeve, jaw tight as his thoughts no doubt turned to the Galra who had turned on Keith’s goodwill. He’d allowed them a home in his desert when they were cast out of everywhere else following Zarkon’s—the Ill Wind’s—sealing. It took a long time to convince Keith that there was no way he could’ve known something like a revolt would happen. It took just as long to convince him that he was only trying to do the right thing and that the Galra made the choice and put it into action.

He only started to believe it when some of the remaining Galra vowed to never follow in the footsteps of their former brethren and spurned Zarkon as their Emperor. But pieces of his guilt and regret remained lodged in him, albeit dulled, despite their best efforts. Even now, Shiro could hear the slight grit of his teeth as he spoke, as he worked to reaffirm it to himself.

Pidge understood this history as well. She’d been there with the rest of the Guardians as they fought to quell the pillaging and conquering Galra. She was there to witness Keith at some of his angriest and most self-destructive moments. It lent a certain weight to his words.

“Pidge, the fact you didn’t know this was happening isn’t a personal failure,” Shiro confirmed steadily. “This snake was very likely naturally born. It’s rare but not impossible, so it’s not that you weren’t attentive or anything. It’s just that it _was_ part of your forest until it started killing everything.”

Pidge finally moved away from Hunk, sucking in a breath and letting it out again in a sigh.

“Yeah… maybe. It just…" She sighed in frustration and ran a hand down her face. "It doesn’t feel like it makes up for what the Olkari are going through _and_ I’ve lost a chunk of the forest too.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “When I think of how it used to be… I can’t believe it became this way.”

Hunk gathered her in his arms again and this time, she clung to him tightly.

“It’ll be okay, Pidge. We’ll find a way to help the forest.”

He glanced up at the others, the question clear in his eyes: was there really something they could do?

None of them knew. This was beyond their expertise. Sam and Matt might have a solution, and they were certainly going to do everything in their power to help, but if it turned out that this forest was beyond saving, what would they do then?

All Shiro could think of was to be there for Pidge and hope for the best.

After a while, Pidge extricated herself from Hunk once again. Her eyes looked a bit red; none of them deigned to point it out.

“You okay?” Keith asked, stepping closer, almost hovering.

“I’ll be fine,” she breathed. She wormed her fingers underneath her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. “We should think about what to do next.”

“There’s pretty much only one way we could go from here, isn’t there?” Keith turned towards the shard still hovering over Shiro’s hand.

Pidge nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, we better find that thing before it does any more damage.” Her jaw tightened as she glared at the skin, “I’ll make sure it’ll never hurt my forest ever again,” she added with a dark undertone.

“Should we explore the rest of the tunnel?” Keith asked, looking over at Shiro, who shook his head.

As curious as he was and as much as he wanted to find out if there really was someone behind this, that wasn’t important right now.

“No, I think we’ve already found out all we need to know here. Its origins can be investigated later. Right now, dealing with the threat is our priority.”

There was a general noise of agreement and they made their way back to the sharp slant that led to the hole they flew down from. It wasn’t much more than a small circle so far down.

Keith flew them up, returning them to the dismal environment of the poisoned swamp now armed with the knowledge of what they were up against.

The shard pointed northwest and they tramped their way in that direction, Shiro in the lead with Pidge to his left to guide them away from obstacles.

For a long time, they walked in silence, the quiet filled only by the wet sound of their footsteps.

“Hey, um, do we actually know what we’re going to do to beat this thing?” Hunk finally asked, unable to stand the emotional tension strung between above them.

“I think the best thing to do first is to try to immobilize as much of it as we can. Eight heads and a tail are a lot to look out for, and they can spit acid to boot,” Shiro replied.

“Of course they can,” Keith muttered to himself before saying, “I can fight, but I can’t help much with restraining it. Fire isn’t exactly solid.”

“Using the earth here is going to be difficult,” Hunk added, “The acid’s weakened it too much for me to get a good handle on it. Even if I do manage it, it’ll be easy to break through…” he trailed off.

Pidge’s power over plants would normally be ideal for restraining and binding enemies, but with the forest no longer able to support any kind of life, it was impossible for her to be able to use them.

Pidge shook her head.

“I could distract them. Do we know if it could use magic?”

Shiro’s brow furrowed as he recalled the faint tingle of _something_ that usually indicated magic, but memory-reading never gave specifics about _what_ magic; only whether or not it was present.

“I could say with a hundred percent confidence that it has magic, but I don’t know what kind or if it could use it or not,” Shiro told her.

“Then we’re going to need to get a read on that first,” Pidge decided, adjusting her glasses and squinting, “Who knows what an _eight-headed snake_ could do.”

“That means getting close to it, right? I could play defense while you concentrate,” Hunk offered.

“You won’t have to if we manage to sneak up to it,” Keith pointed out.

“We might not be able to though,” Pidge cautioned, “Snakes have a surprisingly keen sense of smell and a way to sense heat. This one is like a super snake. It might detect us before we even get to it.”

“Then we’ll have to be ready in case we meet it face-to-face. Hunk could help protect Pidge while she works out the magic and Keith could distract it. I could provide backup.” Shiro brushed against his sash where his paper talismans were tucked. “It’d also be a good idea to have Lance here too. His ice would be helpful.”

“Yeah, and snakes are cold-blooded too, right? Maybe that’ll be enough to take care of it,” Hunk said with pleading eyes that wouldn’t look out of place on a puppy.

“Maybe. We could hope,” Shiro conceded with an amused smile. “In any case, it’d be a good idea to summon Lance early.”

He wanted to ensure they’d all at least be together in case they walked up to the snake right that moment or even worse, have it slither up to them. Memory-reading couldn’t judge distance between them and the target, after all.

“Great, let’s do that now because it looks like we’re going to need his help anyway,” Pidge pointed ahead towards the ground, “There’s like a whole area that’ll probably melt our legs off if we try to cross it ourselves.”

Shiro stared a little harder at the indicated spot, trying to see what she saw.

In the dim, limited light of their hazy surroundings, brightened only by the light of Keith’s fire, he could see that the patch of ground appeared to be a bit off-color. It was a puce-brown hue, standing in contrast to the deep brown, almost black, of the mush they were walking on. But it wasn’t a single patch: it stretched out into the gloom much like the enormous hole to the snake’s den.

As they approached the edge, Shiro could make out the pasty texture of an expanse of sludge. He could even see parts of it swelling and popping with a slow viscous consistency that reminded him a bit of lava.

Shiro ripped a bit off the end of his sash and tossed it in front of him. The piece of cloth hissed as it touched the sludge and dissolved in mere seconds.

“Something tells me we shouldn’t wade in that,” Hunk said after a long pause.

“I’ll call Lance,” Shiro declared before he focused in on the cool, playful splash of humor that was Lance and pulled.

Water droplets from the air and soil coagulated into a long coil of whirlpool water, snaking out of which came a great serpentine dragon. His pearlescent scales shimmered a rainbow of azures wherever they caught the firelight as he twisted around over the acid lake to face them.

“The Lance is on the scene!” he crowed but began coughing not a second later. “Ugh, what is that smell? Where are you guys?”

“It’s a long story,” Shiro beckoned him over to where they stood, “But to answer your second question, this is Verterna.”

“Verterna?!” Lance cried. He twisted around himself to gawked at his surroundings in astonished disbelief. “You sure? But this place looks… dead. And gross. And creepy. Well, some parts of Verterna are always creepy but—”

“We get it. Just come down so we can explain. You do want to know what’s happening, right?” Keith interrupted, terse.

Lance let out a huff but his dragon form sloughed off nonetheless. From the wash of water crashing onto the ground came a thin figure in silver scale armor. He bore a scrunched look of disgust on his angular face, which twisted even more at the first squelch his sabaton made.

“Ugh, so what’s going on?” he asked, pinching his nose as he joined them. He cocked a brow at Keith. “And why am I in a fire barrier?”

“The air’s poisonous. It’s to protect us,” Keith answered, folding his arms.

“What? But poison doesn’t affect Guardian Spirits!” Lance objected, looking around for confirmation only to be met with solemn expressions.

“This one does if you stay in it for too long,” Keith said, holding his eye to communicate the seriousness. “It’s what’s killing Verterna.”

Lance’s jaw dropped.

“What? Seriously? That’s… That’s not good…” He glanced around once more but this time with a new light of comprehension in his eyes. His attention focused on the shard floating above Shiro’s palm. “But you guys’re already on it, right? What can I do to help?”

“We need to get across this acid lake, for one,” Shiro replied, nodding towards the bubbling muck. “We don’t want to fly over it in case we miss something, so we need your help to get across.”

“No sweat. A lake? I could freeze one a hundred times over in my sleep,” Lance scoffed with a dismissive flap of his hand.

“Heh, but can you freeze a giant eight-headed snake a hundred times over?” Pidge teased.

Lance gaped at her.

“What? Eight-headed— _What?_ ”

“Eight. Headed. Snake,” Pidge punctuated, grinning at Lance’s reaction, “It’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“Yeah, it’s what’s causing everything to be so…” Hunk waved his arms around to encapsulate the swamp-forest, “gooey.”

“Okay, fine. We’re going to go fight a giant eight-headed snake because that’s just as crazy as everything else we’ve ever fought. And what can it do, exactly?” Lance demanded.

“Its venom is acid, its breath is poison, it has a scorpion tail, and its scales are about as tough as the Leviathan’s,” Shiro ticked off, watching as Lance’s expression turned more incredulous with each thing he listed.

“Isn’t that kind of overkill?” Lance squawked.

“It’s not as overkill as the Thousand-Eye Beast,” Pidge stated with a bland look.

Lance and Hunk shuddered.

“I thought we agreed never to speak of that thing again,” Lance said in one hushed breath as if talking about it out loud would somehow revive it.

“So many eyes,” Hunk whispered with a distant look. He shuddered again and shook his head in an attempt to dispel the image of the creepy artificial _thing_. He didn’t want to have nightmares about the way it cried meteors out of its many, many eyes ever again if he could help it.

“Anyway,” Shiro interjected to get them back on track, “the snake—”

 “We should really think of a name for it,” Pidge muttered.

“—is going to be formidable and we’re going to need your ice to restrain its heads.”

“So restrain it, huh?” Lance gave two thumbs up. “I gotcha.”

“Let’s call it the Hydra,” Pidge proposed with a snap of her fingers, clearly not listening. Shiro sent her a withering look. “What? We can’t keep calling it ‘the snake’ forever. Other people’ll be confused about _which_ snake we’re talking about.”

“But Hydra?” Lance scoffed. “Why not a cooler name, like Níðhöggr? It means Malice-Striker. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Hydra meant poison in Olkarian ages ago.”

“You’re just going to name it Poison? That’s boring,” Lance complained.

Pidge shrugged.

“Describes it, doesn’t it?”

“I think Hydra’s fine. It’s in her forest, she gets naming rights,” Hunk put in, gesturing to Pidge as though to indicate a winner.

“Alright fine, it’s called the Hydra. We still need to get across the acid,” Keith thrusting a hand over to the mired lake.

“Right, right, right, I’m on it,” Lance cracked his fingers and raised an arm.

It wasn’t visible at first, but as they watched, crusts of frost began to form from the edges across the surface, too thin and clear to see if it weren’t for how they reflected the firelight.

The crust thickened into transparent ice as it spread, sealing the acid beneath as the frost crept across the lake and melded together where they met, smooth as a mirror.

“Don’t stay in one spot too long,” Lance warned, “‘cause this fire barrier’s gonna melt the ice and I don’t really want anybody taking an acid bath.”

“Is it so thin we need to worry?” Keith asked with an arched brow.

“Of course it’s not thin! It’s the complete opposite of thin! What do you take me for?” Lance harrumphed, crossing his arms with a pout. “Just don’t stand around for longer than two minutes and you’ll be fine.”

“Works for me.” Pidge began forward, “I wouldn’t want to be hanging around on top of an acid lake for that long anyway.”

“Yeah, let’s just hurry up and get across so I don’t have to keep thinking about the stuff we’re right on top of,” Hunk shuddered.

The group began to follow Pidge, careful as they slid along the surface. They all had some experience moving across ice thanks to numerous occasions Lance had frozen the ground in their time together, but they still had to watch their step. They didn’t need the skill often and it wasn’t as though they’d practiced skating extensively.

Lance, on the other hand, took great pleasure in skating in great loops and circles around them, showing off with little twirls here and there. Still, he never strayed too far from them.

They reached the other side with little incident, but it became clear the moment they set foot off the ice that things were somehow even bleaker here than the swampy land they had just slogged through.

The other side was utterly barren.

Maybe there were still some remaining trees somewhere ahead that Shiro couldn’t see. He wasn’t the one with the enhanced and enchanted eyesight, after all. But a quick glance over at Pidge’s pinched face told him all he needed to know. What he saw was exactly what it was.

For a moment, a memory of emptiness flashed before his eyes. Pale mist hovered over a blackened wasteland of ashes and corpses, nearly indistinguishable from one another. The scene was there and gone from his mind in an instant. A whiff of scorch ghosted across the underside of his senses before it whispered away, replaced by  Vertana’s more pungent smell of reality.

Shiro released a long exhale and forced it out of his mind.

That was thousands of years ago. It didn’t matter right now.

Pidge on the other hand sucked in a breath between her teeth.

Lance winced at the sight, or lack thereof in any case.

“Is the forest really going to be alright?”

There was concern in his tone but there was also a note of uncertainty in it that had Pidge clenching her fists.

“It _has_ to be alright,” she gritted out, her voice, almost a growl.

Lance pivoted to face her, a look of guilt and alarm settling across his countenance.

“No, I didn’t mean it wouldn’t be. I’ve just… never seen Verterna like this before. It surprised me.”

Pidge softened her features with a weak smile.

“I know, sorry. Come on. Let’s keep going. I know we’re getting close.”

Lance looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. He glanced over at the others and Hunk shook his head, waving at their dismal surroundings and pointing ahead.

Lance turned back around.

“Right, okay, because I’m just so excited to fight an eight-headed snake.”

That earned him a nudge from Pidge.

“Yeah, I know you’re just dying to rush in.”

“You know I’m always ready to throw down.”

Now well within the Hydra’s territory, their conversations ceased as they ventured deeper under the guidance of their unerring compass.

Shiro’s free hand remained ready at his sash, a paralyzing talisman pinched between his fingers. The others were similarly alert, prepared to react at the slightest movement against them.

“Get ready,” Pidge murmured.

In the distance, something moved, long and sinuous. It was nearly invisible among the backdrop of darkness.

Shiro thought he could hear quiet hissing like wind whispering between the branches of a tree. It barely stirred the air, yet it raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

Lance shuddered next to him.

“That thing gives me the creeps,” he whispered, clasping his own arms as though he could stave off the feeling by doing so.

“Why? It’s long and thin, like you,” Keith quipped , his gaze fixed on the blurred shadow nearly invisible in the backdrop of darkness.

“I am not a snake,” Lance hissed.

“Guys, _focus_ ,” Shiro broke in before their squabble  had a chance to escalate. “Pidge, do you see any of its heads?”

“Yeah. All eight of ‘em. Doesn’t seem like they’ve noticed us yet.” She paused for a stretch of time. “I don’t sense any magic… but it could be because it’s contained. We need to get close to it to find out for sure.” She turned to them. “So what’s the plan?”

“Sneak up to it?” Hunk suggested, scratching his head, “Get a read on its magic and then go pow—” he punched his fist out, “—on it?”

“Or I could just freeze the whole thing,” Lance said with a beam.

Pidge suddenly whipped around so fast it startled them before she let out a sinking,

“Oh…”

“Oh? What oh? I don’t like the sound of that oh,” Lance babbled.

“The Hydra’s straightened up. It’s on alert,” She glanced at them with wide, grim eyes, “I think it’s noticed us.”

Just as she said, Shiro could vaguely make out the indistinct shapes of eight curving pillars, tall and still. Keith muttered a curse under his breath and Lance, trying not to fidget with nervous energy, glanced at him before nudging Hunk, who’d frozen.

“So much for sneaking up on it,” Hunk said. He gulped. “Distract it?”

“No, let’s try freezing it first. Eight heads attacking at the same time is hard to keep track of.” Shiro turned to each of them as he addressed them. “Lance, see if you can’t do that first. Keith, go with him. If freezing doesn’t work, go for a distraction, but be careful. We don’t know what dormant magic it has. Hunk, Pidge, we’re going to move in when Lance gives the okay.”

“You got it,” Lance said, grasping his opposite shoulder in the salute of the merpeople. He turned to Keith, “You better not get in my way.”

“You better not get in _my_ way,” Keith snapped back and then hesitated, “If I’m fighting, I won’t be able to concentrate on the fire barriers. They’ll go out,” His eyes slid over to Shiro before darting over towards the others, “You won’t get protection from the poison.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Shiro said with a small frown. “We’ll just have to finish this as quickly as possible.”

His team glanced at one another in that way that Shiro had learned to be a mutual agreement to ensure his well-being.

“Guys,” Shiro sighed just this side of amused exasperation.

“Right, okay,” Hunk put up his hands in a pacifying way, “In and out, real quick. Got it. Let’s do this.”

Keith nodded and Lance gave a small push to the shoulder to get him going. They both turned into their spirit forms and set out towards Hydra. Shiro linked their mental communications as they went.

It was difficult to see with how hazy the surroundings were, but Shiro could make out both their forms flying towards Hydra. The creature stirred into a frenzy as they drew closer. Shiro saw the moment Lance engaged, a flash of fuzzy white-blue lit up in the distance as he let out a powerful beam of ice.

All eight heads stopped squirming. Shiro assumed Lance’s attack was successful.

Several moments passed and the heads remained immobile. After a couple additional minutes, Lance spoke up.

“I think it’s okay.”

Pidge crouched and shifted into the form of a large, magnificent white tiger. She gestured for Hunk and Shiro to climb on her back with a toss of her head. She was the smallest of the four, even in her spirit form, but she was still large enough to carry them both  as she sprinted towards the Hydra.

As they approached, a spike of alarm from Keith and Lance raced through their connection. Pidge flinched at the sensation, her speed slowing.

“Wait, wait, backtrack, backtrack! Ice is cracking! It’s not holding!” Lance cried as the snake roused in front of them. Lance rushed  to pile on more layers of ice in an effort to keep it from moving.

“Pidge, head further down the body,” Shiro instructed, directing them to another section of the Hydra.

“It’s not working. We’ll fight it for now,” Keith reported with a grim tone in his voice.

He could hear Hunk mumbling to himself, attempting to calm himself, like Lance was. Shiro attempted to blanket them in calm, drawing on the warm, orange hues of Keith’s steady fire to convey the comfort of campfires. To his relief, Shiro felt them relaxing, but Pidge’s presence remained a steel wall.

The snake’s body twitched as its heads retaliated against their opponents. Pidge leapt on top of it to maintain contact with the body at all times while she investigated the Hydra’s magic.

Hunk and Shiro dismounted and moved in front of her. From this vantage, they could protect her and keep an eye on the battle. They crouched low,  trying to brace against any sudden movements beneath their feet.

“There’s magic,” Pidge confirmed before delving deeper, her steel wall fizzling into a hum of concentration in the back of Shiro’s mind.

Hunk erected a golden crystalline barrier around them as Shiro withdrew three paralyzing talismans, ready to throw at a second’s notice.

He watched as Lance wove between the arcs of acid and fangs, encasing them in ice where he could. Keith’s ferocious scorches of flame accented the world in orange, keeping the rest of the heads at bay. At Shiro’s side, Hunk prepared a charged attack, ready to launch at any time.

“This magic… It feels a bit like Shiro’s!” Pidge exclaimed.

“What?!” Lance yelled, loud enough to make the others wince.

“Tone it down!” Keith barked, rolling just in time to dodge  a spray of acid.

“I knew it. It’s a kami, isn’t it?” Shiro asked, calm expression unswayed as he kept his eye on the fight.

“A kami?” Hunk sounded stunned. He turned his head to stare wide-eyed at Shiro, “But I thought they were…”

Shiro gave a small smile at his bewildered look tinged with tentative concern.

“I survived and I was only a minor kami back then. It wouldn’t surprise me if other kami managed to escape too.”

Hunk’s face fell.

“Oh… So… maybe we could try to save it instead?”

“No,” Shiro asserted with a firm shake of his head,  “It’s not corrupted, so there’s nothing to purify, which means it’s a destructive kami. We have to get rid of it. Anything else, Pidge?”

“Um, yeah. This thing can’t actively use magic, but the magic it _does_ have can absorb outside magic to heal itself. So, even if we manage to injure it, our attacks won’t have any effect.”

“Well that’s just great,” Lance grumbled, sending a jet of blue to freeze a snake head long enough to let Keith escape from its jaws.

“But we’ve dealt with that kind of thing before,” Hunk reminded, “We just overload it.”

“That’s not going to work this time. The magic in the Hydra self-regulates. If we try to overload it, it’ll respond by releasing the build-up. Explosively.”

“Can the magic be rewritten? Or undone? We can buy you time,” Lance offered.

“That would take months. This thing can heal itself, and I mean every part of itself, even its own magic. If I try to mess with it in any way, it’ll just correct itself.”

“If we can’t defeat it, then we’ll have to seal it,” Shiro decided, “And we’ll use the snake’s own magic as the anchor.”

Shiro felt the prickle of Pidge’s piqued interest at the suggestion.

“Hey, good idea. Its magic would feed its own seal. It’ll be hard for anyone to unseal it.”

“It’s going to take longer than a normal sealing, but I need you guys to buy me as much time as you can,” Shiro said.

The Keith and Lance voiced their agreement and redoubled their efforts to stall. Pidge leapt out of the protection of Hunk’s barrier in preparation to defend Shiro.

“Hunk?”

“Gotcha.”

Hunk shifted into his spirit form and Shiro leapt on his shell as it appeared and grew, sitting cross-legged on the highest arc of the carapace.

He steeled himself, focused and intent, and started to weave the seal together.

The current of energy was turbulent against Shiro’s magic as it tried to reject him, but their vague similarities was enough to have it accept some of his magic. It allowed Shiro to meld his energy with the Hydra’s and begin to form the seal from within. As long as he didn’t alter the magic itself, as long as he only layered the seal on top, the current wouldn’t attempt to erase it. In time, it would  come to accept it as part of itself.

He wouldn’t be able to provide any defensive backup while forging the seal, but he trusted his team to be able to handle themselves. Still, he kept half his senses on the ongoing fight. He needed to be aware nonetheless.

Lance and Keith took care of the main distraction while Pidge did what she could to keep the snake’s attention from Hunk. He couldn’t do much beyond providing support fire, not while he was protecting Shiro as he worked.

Pidge regretted that her illusion magic was useless. She could tell from the way the heads dodged Keith’s fire that they could sense heat. If they could sense heat, they’d sense their presence even with an illusion in place.

Their conversations buzzed in the back of Shiro’s mind. He remained tense, listening for any signs of one of his team in pain.

The seal was just over a quarter complete when he felt a tightening in his lungs and throat. It was a small squeeze at first but, it slowly began to twist until he was coughing and wheezing for air. Pain—sharp and sudden—bloomed in his chest, taking away what little air he managed to regain.

He doubled over, forehead almost making contact with Hunk’s shell, gasping at the abruptness. It was like being impaled.

“Shiro!” Hunk called.

Keith cursed.

“The poison or whatever’s in the air is affecting him.”

“Then re-erect the fire barrier!” Lance cried with a frantic edge in his voice. In the air, his movements jerked, almost missing his mark when he fired a beam.

“It’s too late,” Pidge said, strained, “He’s already contracted it.”

Hunk twitched with frantic energy.

“Oh no, oh no. Shiro. We need to get out.”

“No,” Shiro gritted out, “If we leave, the Hydra will keep spreading its poison and more of the forest will die. I’ll need to restart the seal and that’s more time that the forest is left suffering.”

He could feel their conflict, Pidge’s the loudest of them all.

“All we need is to finish the seal.”

Discontent arose among them. None of them liked the idea and Shiro honestly didn’t either. Not all his deaths were exactly peaceful and he didn’t want his team to go through that if he could help it.

“... Dammit. Just... finish it fast,” Keith hissed, voice tense.

“Yeah,” Shiro breathed. He steeled himself against the pain, compartmentalizing it so that, it wouldn’t disrupt his concentration. It wouldn’t disappear completely, but it’d be enough. He was good at it.

Faint red light suffused the area, the glow of the seal in progress beneath them soft and present.

Shiro worked his magic as fast as he could, building on the restraints and feeding them with power.

His head started to pound until he struggled to keep the mental connections up. He could vaguely sense his team’s cries, but they were cut off as he tried to get ahold of the swooping swirl in his stomach. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping the sway in his vision would take away some of his nausea. It didn’t and it was getting progressively harder to breathe; he coughed and choked on every breath.

Even so, he kept telling himself it was only a little longer, that he was almost done. He didn’t know if he was, but the thought gave him enough strength to keep going.

“He’s going to die. He’s really going to die at this rate,” Pidge shouted. Without Shiro as a conduit, their mental communications were gone; she struggled to be heard over the sound of battle. She glanced back at Shiro before dodging another strike, retaliating with a spark of electricity.

“What should we do? Grab him? The seal’s already half finished!” Lance cried, panicked.

“Pidge, is there a way  to make the seal form more quickly?” Keith yelled, swooping to claw at the eye of a head that got close to biting off Lance’s tail.

Pidge wracked her brain with frantic desperation for several moments before she answered.

“If the magic is busy healing something else, it’d resist Shiro’s magic less. But we'll have to _really_ injure this thing if we want to see any effect.”

“Then we’ll do that,” Keith said firmly.

“Um, did you forget the part where our attacks are kind of bouncing off this thing?” Lance retorted.

“That’s just the skin. If we could get past it, we could injure it easy.”

“You might be onto something,” Hunk said with a note of contemplation in his tone, barrier repelling a spate of acid. “Remember how easily the skin broke when Shiro took out a chunk of it? What if we took the magic from the skin and use that to cut in?”

“That could work! I can’t use it to cut the snake itself, it’ll just heal but…” Pidge raised her voice so she could be heard by Keith and Lance over the distance and their fighting. “Did you guys hear that?”

“What?” Lance shouted in reply, twisting out of the way of two of the snake’s heads and freezing a third.

“I’m going to manipulate the snake’s magic just enough to cut open the skin!” she shouted as loud as she could. She could already feel her voice growing hoarse. “I need you guys to finish the job before it breaks from my control.”

The body was too thick. Pidge would need to go for the neck.

“I’ve got you!” Keith affirmed as Pidge made her way to the neck of one of the heads.

Pidge ripped  the magic out of the skin and slammed it into its surface, hoping against hope that it would work.

The scales cracked, parts of it shattering, and Pidge felt relief flood through her.

She jumped away as Keith shook off a pursuit of acid and two heads. He released a concentrated pillar of fire into the weakened part, which were already beginning to mend again.

The fire seared straight through the cut, leaving behind an acrid smell and the sound of sizzling as the flesh cauterized from the heat.

Pidge was glad because judging by the color of the flesh, she was sure the creature’s blood would be toxic too.

The entire length of the neck and head fell forward with a dull splash. The other heads grew into a fury of furious hissing and spitting.

Lance and Hunk covered for them with sheets of ice and beams of light as they dodged out of the way, already moving on to the next head.

Pidge didn’t know how long the head would remain severed so they’d have to work quick.

They cut off the second one, a little faster than the first now that Pidge had some experience from the first attempt, and the third time was even faster than that. They were in the middle of the fourth when a loud, squishy rip of tearing flesh joined the noise of crackling ice, hissing, and shouting.

Pidge glanced up only briefly to check and spotted a new head emerging from the first severance, budding out of its stump like a morbid sprout, shiny with blood and a clear goo.

It took about five minutes for it to revive, which would give them plenty of time to take care of the other heads—and _keep_ them severed—at the rate Pidge and Keith were going. Then, all they’d only have to wait for the seal to complete and get Shiro out.

Pidge estimated it’d take about twenty minutes before the seal finished. Twenty minutes never felt longer.

The newly formed head was more vulnerable than the others, judging by how Lance was able to freeze it for a longer period of time.

“Ew, that was nasty,” Lance said, freezing the other stumps, “Don’t want to watch it do that again.”

Pidge and Keith finished off the fourth and moved on to the fifth and sixth in quick succession.

The seventh and eighth heads had wised up considerably. It ignored Lance no matter how many icicles he lodged into their eyes or how many times he froze their mouths shut, focusing their attention on Pidge and Keith instead. Once the new head broke out of its entrapment, it immediately went after them, as well.

Pidge leapt away growing as one of the heads attempted to ram her with the icy block still stuck around its mouth before Hunk’s beam slammed into the side of its neck. Keith cut through it much the same as he did the others.

Two of the stumps twitched, the ice cracking off, and Lance froze them  over again in a thicker sheet of ice.

“Come on, not long now,” Pidge muttered to herself, twitchy as they went for their next to last target.

Without multiple heads to look out for, the eighth was considerably easier to take down the previous two.

Pidge hoped this was good enough and looked over at Shiro.

He was in terrible shape, pale and sweaty. Without the noise and distraction of battle, Shiro’s hacking was more prominent. Her stomach sank when she saw the blood coming from his mouth, dribbling down into his robes.

Pidge’s ears flattened at the sight, tail curling around her leg fearfully.

_Don’t die, Shiro._

An explosive boom caught Pidge’s attention. She whipped her head around to see three heads bursting from their imprisoned stumps, showering chunks of ice everywhere as they reared up with an angry hiss.

The heads swiveled towards Pidge and Keith, still sitting on its back and launched a simultaneous dollop of acid.

The Hydra’s regeneration would’ve been interesting if it weren’t for the rage and contempt Pidge held towards it. Her anger, festering like an infected wound, made it less than worth studying even if the monster was sealed.

With a sharp bare of her teeth, Pidge flung herself over to the nearest junction of neck and body.

“Pidge, slow down,” Lance warned, shooting a boulder-sized piece of ice before one of the other heads could do more than open its mouth to aim at her. He dodged its retaliatory strike by smacking his tail against it.

“Yeah, you’ll get hurt like that,” Hunk called even as Pidge was already cracking the scales.

“Fine, I’ll be more careful,” Pidge replied. They didn’t have much longer before it was sealed, though.  She could risk it a little.

Keith finished off the head and paused.

“Pidge, fall back, we’re done. We don’t have to do this anymore.”

“What do you mean we’re done?” Pidge demanded, momentarily turning to Keith with an annoyed flick of her tail.

“Shiro’s almost done. Taking down more heads isn’t going to change that and we still need our energy to make the trip back out of here. Do you want to hobble home poisoned _and_ tired while Shiro needs immediate help?” Keith snapped.

No, she didn’t.

“Take it slow, Pidge,” Keith said, gentling his tone slightly. “I know having your forest destroyed and then watching Shiro risk himself is hard, but we have to make it.”

Pidge nodded and focused instead on distraction and dodging.

Two more heads revived before the seal finally finished.

The heads froze where they were as the seal took effect. Stone-like in its texture and color, it engulfed the entirety of Hydra until it was little more than a giant stone statue as the seal’s magic worked. Safe from threat, they rushed over to Shiro.

Hunk had already transformed back into a human, waiting for them with Shiro propped against one of his arms. Pidge also returned to her human form when she reached them and waited for Lance to fly down to collect her.

Even at a distance, Shiro looked terrible. But up close, it was worse. Pidge had to stop herself from wincing: He looked like death. If it weren’t for the sound of his ragged breaths, Pidge would’ve thought he was dead.

“I’ll ride with him,” Hunk said the moment Keith was close enough to hear. “Someone needs to make sure he can  stay on you.”

Keith nodded and lowered his body for them to get on.

“We’re going to my temple,” she directed. “We can call Matt or dad from there and see if they can help.”

Keith took off without a word as Pidge clambered onto Lance, grabbing fistfuls of his sea-green mane as he took off.

“Do you think they could really do anything for Shiro?” Lance questioned, the worry in his tone blatant as they spiralled upward, “What if it’s too late?”

“It won’t be. They’ll figure something out,” she replied, half to reassure herself and half out of sheer stubbornness.

They didn’t talk after that, the winds of flight too loud to make conversation viable without their mental connection.

Pidge kept her eye on the vibrant spot of red that was Keith, flying ahead of them even with the added weight and fatigue.

With the adrenaline of the battle wearing off, Pidge ached for a nap right there on Lance’s back, but it didn’t seem fair to do so if the others weren’t getting any rest either.

She rubbed her eyes and blinked hard, attempting to get the sleep out of them. She was going to stay awake for this trip even if it killed her.

Thirty minutes later, Pidge peeled herself off Lance’s back, landing on the packed dirt floor of her temple. She stumbled a bit on her wobbly legs before straightening again to find her dad already there helping Shiro off Keith, who had arrived several minutes earlier.

Shiro was still coughing and to her alarm, he was shivering despite the sheen of sweat.

Pidge sped over followed by Lance after he transformed.

“He’s alive,” Sam assured them as they approached and though it provided a small relief, it didn’t ease the tension from the room. Lance bit his lip.

“Can he be… I mean, is there a way to treat him?”

Sam put a hand over Shiro’s heart and everyone waited with bated breath for the verdict.

“It’s pretty bad, but if we’re careful, we could save him.”

“What can we do to help?” Keith asked almost before Sam finished speaking.

“Katie, a bed; Lance, some water and ice; Keith stay near him for warmth; and Hunk, I need you to help me make some medicine. I’ll tell you what to do,” Sam directed, taking out supplies from a pack slung over his shoulder.

PIdge sprouted a bed of springy plants beneath Shiro while Lance filled a pouch borrowed from Sam with ice.

Keith was clearly tired judging by his drooping eyes and body as he settled near Shiro, but like Pidge on her flight to the temple, he fought himself upright and tried to distract himself by watching Hunk tear off the leaves of some herbs.

Lance noticed his plight and went to sit next to him, chattering in his ear. It was probably one of the only times Keith appreciated Lance’s talkative mouth.

Time skipped around but still somehow flowed in one unbroken line. One moment her dad was  coaxing Shiro to drink and the next, Lance was plopping more ice into the pouch.

She hadn’t noticed she’d fallen asleep until she jolted awake off the floor.

“Good night, sleepyhead,” chimed Matt on her right.

Night? Oh. There was torchlight and the forest outside the arches of the temple was dark. She must’ve conked out for several hours.

Turning her attention to her teammates, she could see they’d fallen asleep too. Lance was sprawled out next to Keith, who had managed to remain sitting, but his body leaned so far forward, his head nearly touched his lap. Hunk was curled up near her dad, sitting vigilance next to Shiro’s still-unconscious body.

“How’s Shiro?” she whispered, trying not wake the others.

Her father spoke just as softly. 

“He’s doing okay. He’ll live through this.”

Pidge let out a long, relieved breath.

“You should get some more rest, Kate,” Matt urged even as Pidge noted the dark circles under his eyes.

She snorted.

“Rich coming from you.”

Matt put up his hands in surrender.

“I just got here. Didn’t have time.”

Yeah, she’d bet. He looked like he’d collapse the moment he’s able to.

“What’re you doing here, then?” Pidge challenged, crossing her arms and tilting her chin.

“Can’t I just check on my baby sister?”

Pidge scoffed, keeping the corner of her eye fixed on Matt’s right index finger for his tell.

“No. You were talking to dad, weren’t you?”

“So what if I was?”

“It’s bad, isn’t it? You would’ve told me right away if it was good.” Matt’s finger twitched at that and Pidge pounced, “I knew it! You have something to tell me!” she exclaimed in a furious whisper.

Matt sputtered, face scrunching.

“What? What makes you think that?”

“Your finger twitched!”

“Oh, my finger twitched,” Matt rolled his eyes, “It must mean I’m hiding a dark secret.”

“Don’t lie! Your finger only does that when I catch you out!”

“Kate-tate, much as I’d love to have this conversation with you in the wee hours of night, do you want to wake everyone up?”

“Too late,” Keith grumbled, straightening with a groan and a grimace.

Next to him, Lance sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“What’re you...” He yawned. “What’re you arguing about?”

Matt gestured towards her teammates with his _what-did-I-tell-you_ expression.

“Ya happy now?”

“Very,” Pidge returned because she was petty and didn’t care that she was.

“Matt, we have to tell her eventually. It might as well be now,” Sam interjected before their bickering could escalate.

Pidge directed an expectant stare at her brother, who sighed and slouched, reluctant still to speak.

“Fine.”

“Katie.” Sam paused to rub his head, just as tired as Matt and just as unwilling to break the news to her, “Matt took a look at the forest after you came back. He doesn’t think it’ll return to normal.”

For a long time, Pidge couldn’t understand the words.

“What do you mean?” she asked, mouth dry.

“It’s not that nothing’ll grow,” Matt said, hoping to preempt any grief over that. “I found some tiny black shoots. I think they’re grass or something. But the north isn’t going to be the same.”

Pidge _knew_ all this and she thought she had accepted it, but hearing Matt confirm it shattered the last bit of hope she didn’t even know she had until now.

Matt wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side. Lance came over and piled against her other side. Keith shifted where he sat, glancing over as if unsure what he should do.

“This is stupid. Why am I upset? The forest is going to regrow, only different. So what’s the problem?” Pidge muttered, limp as she leaned against her brother.

“You remember when the Leviathan destroyed part of my ocean, right?” Lance asked. Memories of the deep trenches scarring the ocean bottom and trails of wrecked reefs bubbled into Pidge’s mind. “Yeah… Even when things went back to normal, it didn’t feel the same.”

Sadness flickered across Lance’s face before he replaced it with a smile. The sorrow was still there, but his face shone with encouragement and sympathy.

Pidge nodded in acknowledgement.

“Yeah.”

She missed that part of her forest. A lot of different flowers grew there. They were beautiful, especially when they grew together,  and she ached with the knowledge that she would never see, smell, or touch any of that again.

Her eyes prickled with heat and she smushed her face against Matt as the tears slipped out.

Matt bundled her closer and let her cry until she was done.

She felt a little better, but she was tired again.

She caught a whiff of the pleasant aroma of tea and detached from Matt to accept the cup from her dad. Keith hovered behind Sam with an anxious furrow in his brow. Pidge managed a small smile.

“I’ll be okay.”

Sam squeezed Pidge’s shoulder while Keith sat next to Matt.

“Get some more rest when you finish that,” Sam advised in soft tones. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

It wasn’t long before Matt was drifting off followed by Lance and then Pidge.

When she woke up again, the world was bright with sunlight and she could hear the familiar sounds of diurnal animals echoing through the forests.

“Morning, Pidge. You forget what the sun looked like too?” Hunk joked as he laid  out some food on a blanket. Either the Olkari had prepared them or Hunk did. Pidge was hungry enough not to care.

Matt was already up with a wooden plate of half-eaten food in his hands, though he looked like he could still use a few more hours of sleep. Her dad was dozing by Shiro’s side and Lance and Keith stirred from the smell of food.

Pidge disentangled herself from Lance’s grabby-arms and speed-walked over to breakfast.

“I’m starved. I’ve never felt this hungry before in my life,” she said, grabbing a fork.

“Same,” Hunk agreed, piling some omelettes and salad onto his plate.

They were joined a few moments later by Keith and Lance, the latter of whom inhaled four plates before he deemed himself full. When they had all finished eating, they sat in a circle to discuss their departure.

“I can’t stay much longer. The slyrids are migrating and I have to prepare so they don’t eat the barrier around the Pillar,” Keith said with a pinched expression that suggested he wasn’t happy about it.

“Yeah, we all have to return to our territories. I mean, I want to stay, but…” Hunk said with a concerned look towards Pidge, “Will you be okay?” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, and we’ll take care of Shiro too.” Pidge glanced over at Matt, who nodded. “We’ll try to send updates when we can.”

“Good enough for me,” Lance said and he stood up to stretch. “Well guys, it’s been fun. I’ll see you all later.”

He patted Pidge in the back. With a wink and a swirl of water, he de-summoned himself.

“Take care.”

With a nod, Keith was the next to go in a burst of flame.

“Find me if you need me, okay?”

“I will,” Pidge replied and after a brief hug, Hunk crumbled into dirt.

It felt lonelier without her teammates around, but she couldn’t keep them around when they had to protect their own lands.

Pidge, Matt, and Sam took turns looking after Shiro. Much to their relief, he regained consciousness three days later.

The first thing out of Shiro’s mouth when he woke was,

“Did the seal finish?”

Of course it was.

“Yes, Shiro. Now _rest!_ ” she bid in exasperation.

Several more days later, Shiro was nearly back to full health and Pidge explained what happened with the forest.

“I’m sorry, Pidge. I know you had your hopes up,” Shiro said, sympathetic.

“Yeah, it still sucks but I’m trying to look past it. Matt said things are growing there. I don’t know what, but probably something that’ll give it a good name, like Death Trap Swamp,” Pidge said with a slight grin.

Shiro returned the grin.

“I’m just glad you’re doing okay.”

“I’m working on it.” She hesitated. “When’re you going to leave?”

Shiro let out a breath.

“Probably soon. I have to check on the Minor Pillars.”

Pidge nodded, but her fallen expression told him she was reluctant to see him go.

“I’ll visit soon,” Shiro promised. “Maybe by then, you could give me a tour of Death Trap Swamp.”

Pidge wrinkled her nose, but she was grinning.

“What, you haven’t had enough of the smell, the sludge, and all those other nice bits about the swamp?”

Shiro shrugged. “Guess not.”

When it was time for him to go, Matt, Sam, and Pidge walked him to the edge of the Olkari territory where they exchanged their final good-byes.

“We would like to have you stay longer, but we can’t help our work,” Sam said with a smile.

“Thanks for taking care of me for so long. It must’ve been rough,” Shiro replied, slight apology in his voice.

Matt put his hands on his hips and raised a brow. “It’s not much worse than other times we had to save your butt.”

Shiro turned to Pidge.

“Take care. Don’t work too hard.”

Pidge snorted.

“Look who’s talking,” she chided, looking at him over the frame of her glasses, “We’ll see you later.”

With one last wave, Shiro left Verterna and its depths of life.

 

 

 


End file.
